Institute for Movement Analysis (IMA)

Movement analysis systematizes fundamental procedures for movement intervention with the emotionally ill, psychiatric clientel, children with behavioral disorders and the disabled. Targeted movement play, exercise and / or improvisation encourage the participants to experience and analyze their own movement ressources and reflect on them as tho motoric means of eceryday existence. This experimental process of movement inquiry documents personal embodiment as an interactive life process by movement conflicts and solutions. The observational criteria that have been especially standardized for this method enable the establishment of phenomenological motoric findings. These assess the participant's available movement ressources, support the planning of relevant intervention goals and offer a concrete basis for evaluating treatment efficiency. Movement observation and analysis merge in the findings through a system of movement notation developed especially for this method. Its signs indicate spontaneous movements as specific phenomena within a discrete concept of elementary body movement as a medium of personal action.

Founding

In the course of his long career as a movement soloist in his own one-man theatre performances throughout Europe as well as directing actors, choreographing and teaching, Cary Rick, developed an in-depth understanding of body movement that he systematized during his later work as a Board-Certified dance/movement therapist (BC-DMT) and trainer. Rick began to formulate the method of Movement Analysis in the '80's during a critical reflection of dance therapy. By the time he founded the Institute for Movement Analysis (IMA) in Switzerland In 1994 he had formulated the essential features of his method of movement analysis and standardized the curiculum of its training course. In 1994 the Austrian National Board of Psychotherapy (ÖBVP) approved the Institute of movement analysis and its curriculum as extended education for psychotherapists.